The Prison Experiment : Milgram 's Obedience Theory

Humanity will always question the idea of obedience. Two prestigious psychologists, Stanley Milgram and Philip G. Zimbardo, conducted practical obedience experiments with astonishing results. Shocked by the amount of immoral obedience, both doctors wrote articles exploring the reasoning for the test subjects ' unorthodox manners. In "The Perils of Obedience" by Milgram and "The Stanford Prison Experiment" by Zimbardo, the professionals reflect their thoughts in a logical manner. Milgram 's experiment consisted of a teacher, learner, and experimenter: the teacher was the test subject and was commanded to administer a shock by the experimenter. Upon switching the generator on, the learner-who was actually an actor-would jerk, cry, and occasionally seem unconscious. Expecting most subjects to stall the experiment, Milgram witnessed the exact opposite. Zimbardo, on the other hand, staged a mock prison, whereas half the subjects were guards and the other half were prisoners. Every test subject knew they were in an experiment and complied with the two week trial. However, the majority of the test subjects-particularly the guards-found themselves fitting into the mock prison all too well: abusing, insulting, and yelling obscenities at prisoners was commonplace, compelling many prisoners to appear insane. The driving force for immoral obedience is contributed to several factors: As seen in the film A Few Good Men by director Rob Reiner, when obedience causing harm undergoes

Stanley Milgram's "The Perils of Obedience" and Philip G. Zimbardo's "The Stanford Prison Experiment" both effectively use experiments to discuss factors that effect one's obedience to authority. Milgram's experiment involves a test subject, also called the teacher, who is asked by an authority figure, or the "experimenter" to give out question to a learner. If the learner answers incorrectly, the teacher is asked to deliver shocks to the student that increase in voltage each time. Conflict arises when the learner begins to cry out in pain, and the teacher must decide to stop and listen to the learner's pleas, or obey the experimenter. Both the experimenter and the learner are actors, while the teacher remains oblivious to the experiment. The results show twenty-five out of forty learners obeying the authority to the end, administrating 450 volts (Milgram 80). Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment consists of twenty-one college aged males, ten of which are assigned as prisoners, and eleven of which are assigned as guards. The subjects are placed in a mock prison, where they acted in ways they did not know was possible, even though they are aware of being in an experiment: the guards frequently harass and torment the prisoners in various manners due to being deindividualized. Though Milgram explains the power of the situation causing obedience more fairly, Zimbardo more effectively explains the impact of wanting to please others. Though Milgram and Zimbardo both logical

She begins recounting the notorious details, how innocent college students labeled prisoners and guards displayed psychological abuse after only six days of confinement, and makes reference to Stanley Milgram’s obedience study and Abu Ghraib, where similar maltreatment, perceived or real, was conducted on civilians by civilians. She addresses and refutes the accepted belief that the Stanford Prison Experiment proved that anyone could become a tyrant when given or instructed by a source of authority. Instead, she suggests that Zimbardo’s inquiry points toward but does not land on one exact conclusion. She explains the influence of the setting, the presentation of the roles, Zimbardo’s participation, and perhaps a sense of expectation felt, all of which can be reflected in the shocking behavior of a few guards. She argues that it should not have been so shocking. Konnikova discredits the neutrality of Zimbardo’s experiment by insisting that people who would respond to an ad for a psychological study of prison life were not “normal” people. However, with her diction and choice of evidence she displaces the study's culpability in a way that ultimately blurs and undermines her claim.

This report will compare two experiments; Asch 's conformity experiment and Milgram 's obedience experiment. The two experiments will be compared for validity and their ethics. In addition, this report will take into consideration Zimbardo 's Stanford Prison experiment and the Lucifer Effect. To analyse how obedience and conformity theories can be used as an example of why good people can turn bad. This report will also look at how obedience and conformity can be applied to the criminal justice system.

“The Perils of Obedience” was written by Stanley Milgram in 1974. In the essay he describes his experiments on obedience to authority. I feel as though this is a great psychology essay and will be used in psychology 101 classes for generations to come. The essay describes how people are willing to do almost anything that they are told no matter how immoral the action is or how much pain it may cause.

Dr Philip Zimbardo created the Stanford prison experiment in 1971, the aim of this experiment was to find out the psychological effects of prison life, and to what extent can moral people be seduced to act immorally. The study consisted of 24 students selected out of 75, the roles of these 24 men were randomly assigned, 12 to play prison guards and 12 to play prisoners. The prison set up was built inside the Stanford’s psychological department, doors where taken of laboratory rooms and replaced with steel bars in order to create cells. At the end of the corridor was the small opening which became the solitary confinement for the ‘bad prisoners’. Throughout the prison there were no windows or clocks to judge the passage in time, which resulted in time distorting experiences. After only a few hours, the participants adapted to their roles well beyond expectations, the officers starting

In 1971, psychologist Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues created the experiment known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. Zimbardo wanted to investigate further into human behavior, so he created this experiment that looked at the impact of taking the role of a prisoner or prison guard. These researchers examined how the participants would react when placed in an institutionalized prison environment. They set up a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University’s psychology building. Twenty four undergraduate students were selected to play the roles of both prisoners and guards. These students were chosen because they were emotional, physically, and mentally stable. Though the experiment was expected to last two weeks, it only lasted six days after the researchers and participants became aware of the harm that was being done.

In 2010, a movie was released called “The Experiment”. I was sixteen years old and this movie became the start of my obsession with the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. The movie was very loosely based on the actual experiment and hardly had any true facts at all. But nonetheless, I found myself so intrigued. The original experiment was conducted by Philip Zimbardo to study imprisonment, the psychology of authority, and the abuse of power.

When individuals disregard their freedom for the good of the whole, they are no longer considered individuals but products of conformity. Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, engineered an experiment to test the ordinary person’s level of obedience. Many of Milgram’s colleagues admired his intricate experiment, and thought that he provided valid information on the complexity of obedience. One of his colleagues, Diana Baumrind, however, strongly disagreed with Milgram and has good reasons to criticize his experiment. She thought his experiment was unethical and very harmful to the social well-being of the participants. In her article, “Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience”, she castigated Milgram’s experiment and provided

Ethics in Experiments: The Stanford Prison Experiment Lyndsey Brady Brigham Young University I chose to read and research more about the Stanford Prison Experiment that was headed by Philip Zimbardo. He conducted this experiment as a way to “demonstrate the power of social situations to distort personal identities and long cherished values and morality as students internalized situated identities in their roles as prisoners and guards” (Zimbardo, Research, 2004). On one of his websites, prisonexp.org, Dr. Zimbardo explains that he gained his sample from placing “a local newspaper ad calling for volunteers in a study of the psychological effects of prison life.” He continues to explain that after receiving about 70 applicants

This paper serves to summarize The Zimbardo Prison Experiment, better known as The Stanford Prison Experiment which was conducted by Phillip Zimbardo in 1971 at Stanford University. The purpose of the study was to conduct research in order to better understand the psychological components of human aggression and submission to include conformity and obedience in a prison environment with a select group of subjects playing roles as either prison guards or inmates, however, I should note, according to McLeod, S. (2016), The Navy’s intent or purpose for the experiment was to better understand how to train members of the armed forces on how to cope with stress associated with captivity as opposed to making American Prison systems more humane. Another interesting point of note is that Zimbardo conducted this experiment shortly after World War II, and the Vietnam War where concern was raised as to some of the atrocities carried out in those wars where “ordinary” people conducted heinous acts per instruction from so-called authoritative figures. Experiments with similar objectives were carried out by Stanley Milgram and others. (Jones, A. D., & Milgram, S. 1974)

The Stanford Prison Experiment was to determine how conformity and obedience could result in people behaving in ways that are counter to how they would at on their own. The main goal of the experiment was to see how social norms and social convections might influence the behavior of participants who are playing the roles of prisoners and prison guards. The study really elaborates on the relationship between the abuser and the abused. It is interesting to see how easily the human psyche gives repetitive abuse and is conditioned to receive it and accept it. This paper will discuss the motives, procedures, findings, ethical issues, and informed consent the Stanford Prison Experiment concluded on.

“The interest in developing guidelines for psychological research was stimulated by several studies, particularly Watson and Raynor’s research on Little Albert (1920), Milgram’s interest in obedience (1963; 1964), Humphrey’s naturalistic observations of tearooms (1973), and Zimbardo and colleague’s prison experiment (1973). Each of these studies has in part contributed to the current ethical standards for psychology research on humans in the United States” Youngpeter, 2008).

1). The guards themselves did not feel any guilt while enacting their behavior against the prisoners until after the experiment ended. The behavior of the guards may be related to the term of demand characteristics, which means that they acted the way they did just because they knew they were a part of a study. Zimbardo had told them how he wanted them to behave and they gave him just that. In a way the social desirability bias applies here because they were trying to conform to the “normal” idea of a prison guard.

Obedience and Disobedience has been a part of key moments in history. Many have studied forms of obedience to learn how it affects people and situations. For example, Stanley Milgram conducted a well-known experiment in which the subject, named the “teacher” must shock the “learner” every time he doesn’t remember a word pair from a memory test. The focus of this study is on the teacher, and whether they will administer killing shocks when told to by an authority figure. Another well-known experiment is the Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo. A group of college boys were separated into two groups, prison guards and prisoners, and were put